14th March, 2011
Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority has sent a Nigerian woman and her Israeli-born daughter back to Nigeria.
The woman entered Israel in 2009 as a part of a tourist pilgrimage from Nigeria. After the group left Israel, the woman remained behind and applied for refugee status. Her request was denied but she has stayed in Israel since
After the woman’s daughter was born in Israel in September 2010, she continued to live in the country without sorting out her legal statusThe woman and her daughter were arrested over the weekend and deported after 72 hours.
During that waiting period, they were brought before a judge who upheld the order to deport them back to Nigeria.
The woman’s husband and the rest of her family still live there.
Six months ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet accepted the recommendations of an inter-ministerial committee to deport migrant workers who do not meet certain criteria, even if said migrants’ children were born in Israel.
UNICEF Israel, the organization in charge of enforcing the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, protested the cabinet’s decision, calling it a “blatant violation” of the convention, which Israel signed with 200 other states worldwide.
“Israel must formulate a humane immigration policy and stop the senseless revolving door policy, that wants to deport migrant workers and their children, on the one hand, and bring in new ones instead, on the other hand,” UNICEF Israel said in a statement.